Vanessa M. Patrick

Bio

Dr. Vanessa Patrick is a Bauer Professor of Marketing, Director of Bauer PhD Programs, PhD Director for the Marketing Department and Faculty Advisor to the Bauer Women's Society at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston.
She has a PhD in Business from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, an MBA in Marketing and a BS degree in Microbiology and Biochemistry from Bombay University in India.
Her research deals primarily with the psychology that underlies the two sides of the pleasure coin. On one hand she studies the pursuit of pleasure in her work dealing with art and aesthetics, hedonics and luxury branding. On the other hand, she investigates strategies by which individuals can successfully manage the pull of pleasure in her work on self-control and the interplay of affect and control.
Her research has appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and numerous other academic journals. In 2012, Dr. Vanessa Patrick was named one of the top 50 most productive marketing scholars worldwide by the DocSig of the American Marketing Association. She is a MSI Young Scholar designated by the Marketing Science Institute, is the winner of the 2008 Davidson Honorable Mention Award for the Best article in Journal of Retailing 2006 (Volume 82), and was awarded a best paper of the Overall Conference and Best paper for the Consumer Behavior Track at the American Marketing Association Summer Educators Conference (2007). Among the many awards she has received are the Outstanding Marketing Teacher at the University of Georgia, the University of Georgia's Top 10 Professors award, and, the LeRoy and Lucille Melcher Faculty Excellence in Research Award by the Bauer College of Business.
She has edited a special issue on Aesthetics for the Journal of Consumer Psychology in 2010. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Consumer Psychology and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Retailing.
Dr. Patrick has been a columnist for the international news outlet Hindustan Times (circulation 1.2 million). She has been featured on ABC News and NPR as an expert in the area of self-control. In addition her research has been widely featured in major news outlets like the LA Times, Forbes, Huffington Post, Scientific American and Yahoo! News.
Prior to her academic career, Vanessa Patrick worked in advertising and brand consultancy for multinational agencies like Ogilvy and Mather and J. Walter Thompson whose clients include DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Kimberly-Clark, Unilever, L'oreal and Bacardi. She has also worked as a consultant to companies like the Coca-Cola Company, CNN and Hallmark.

Research Interests

Affect (mood and emotions)

Art and Aesthetics

Self control

Luxury marketing

Branding

Areas of Expertise

Consumer Behavior

Branding

Publications

Hagtvedt, Henrik and Vanessa M. Patrick (2015), "Gilt versus Guilt: Should Luxury and Charity Partner at the Point of Sale?," forthcoming in the Journal of Retailing .

Hollenbeck, Candice and Vanessa M. Patrick (2015), "Mastering Survivorship: How Brands Facilitate the Transformation to Heroic Survivor," forthcoming in the Journal of Business Research .

Meert Katrien, Mario Pandelaere and Vanessa M. Patrick (2014), "Taking a Shine to It: How the Preference for Glossy stems from an innate need for water," Journal of Consumer Psychology , 24(2), 195-206.

Patrick, Vanessa M., Matthew Lancellotti and Henrik Hagtvedt (2009), "Getting a Second Chance: The Role of Imagery in the Influence of Inaction Regret on Behavioral Intent," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 37 (2) 181-190.